White Days
by Artist For Love
Summary: Fang's pain is in the form of a white room, day after day after day. But the flock will save him, even if he can't save them. No matter what it takes.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! So. I wasn't planning on writing a Maximum Ride fanfic, but this idea just sort of randomly came to me. (Like, randomly. Like I was just kind of laying there and noticed it floating around in my head.)So, yeah. It's been done before but never in great quality (that I've read) and the plot bunnies wouldn't back off, so you have a fanfic. It's been a while since I read Maximum Ride and I may or may not have finished the series, so if I get anything wrong let me know. Also, be warned that updates might take a while since I like to procrastinate. A lot. (For anyone who has read Another Night, I haven't abandoned it! I swear! The next chappie is in progress. *nervous laugh*) Without further ado, I present chappie 1. (Chappie is my new favorite word.)**

**3 A.M.**

The flock slept peacefully, the six of them sprawled on the ground wrapped in coats and blankets for warmth, Gazzy's gentle snoring filling the silence. Fang lay awake, listening to the strangely comforting sound. But his eyes were on Max. She looked peaceful, more peaceful than Fang had ever seen her awake. Angel was snuggled beside her, pressed close against her for warmth. With her golden curls bathed in white moonlight, she really did look like an angel. Her hair fell on Max's chest and rose and fell gently with her breathing. The sound of the flock's breathing lulled Fang into a light doze.

_When the first Eraser landed, he didn't hear._

When the second one landed, he didn't let waste a second being startled. He heard their harsh breath and cursed them silently. Sensing that the Erasers were behind him, he opened his eyes slowly. He concentrated on keeping his breath steady in the quiet night. _In, out. In, out._

The crunch of leaves told Fang that a third had landed. A fourth. Then two or three simultaneously. Footsteps defiled the silence, coming closer, closer. He let his eyes fall shut again, patient. One step. Another. Let them come. Let them come. _In, out. In, out. Open your eyes._

Without warning, Fang was on his feet, his harsh yell waking the flock; Max's back was pressed against his own and Erasers were on top of them with blinding speed. The night exploded; they were fighting for their lives.

The first one moved like lightning, sending a high kick toward Fang's head, who ducked and retaliated, shooting to his feet and taking full advantage as the wasted momentum of the kick caused the Eraser to stumble forward. Only slightly, but it was enough.

Max battled with her own Eraser; she was fast and he wasn't but he was strong. She had the upper hand until he got a blow in low on her abdomen, stealing her breath.

Angel's Eraser was tall and smart. He was good; so was she. She fought with violent grace; she was a ballerina, golden curls rusted with blood and dirt. But golden, still. She dodged low; he had stamina that she didn't have. Blow after blow after blow after blow. And his mind was a chorus of a violent, graceful song he'd picked up from somewhere he must have gone disguised as a human. But the coldness in his eyes was not human. Angel narrowly avoided a blow to the side of her head from his large, clumsy, relentless fist.

Around her, the flock was struggling. They'd been woken from their first sleep in more hours than they could count and it was showing. Iggy and Gazzy fought side by side, Max and Fang back to back, Fighting off blows and throwing feeble attacks, exhausted and close to leaning on each other for support, but neither did.

It was a violent dance, and the cold air burned Fang's lungs. But it was a good burn, it made him strong. He swung at the Eraser's collarbone, feeling it crack beneath his fist. The Eraser didn't fall. He caught the hand that had done the damage and snapped it. But the cold had turned Fang's bones to ice, and ice couldn't feel pain.

But defeat was imminent.

Angel was not the first to go down.

Max was not the last to go down.

But they both went down and the mutants still fighting felt strength course through them; if they died they would die standing. They drove back two erasers, three. Lifted into the air because the sky was their fortress, and the Erasers were clumsy there. Still, they were tired, but the Erasers couldn't take them.

The smart eyes of an Eraser on the ground surveyed the sky and made a quick decision. The dark haired one, he was strong. Take the dark haired one. And it wove into his violent chorus, take the dark haired one.  
_  
__In, out, In, out_

The tall, smart eraser lifted into the night with one last glance at the ground strewn with leaves and injured bodies that could have been sleeping.

His eyes were the color of rust.

**6 A.M.**

His first waking thought was that he couldn't hear Max breathing anymore. He sucked in air to fill the silence and a second thought came. He hated the color white and the smell of antiseptics.

This room smelled like antiseptic.

The smell was a slap and Fang opened his eyes. Where was he?

He was somewhere white. Whiteness assaulted his eyes and made his heart beat a little faster.

He was somewhere that was white and smelled like antiseptic.

_In, out. In, out. _

The panic would have blinded him if the world wasn't so damn white.

_In, out. In, out._

**Thank you for reading! I love you like I love cream cheese frosting, which I eat with a spoon. Reviews make me happy but I'm kind of happy anyway so whatever. But I do love cream cheese frosting.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi! I'm back. Millions of thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, favorited, and all that jazz. YOU MAKE MEH VERY HAPPEH! Sorry for the wait, but I've had a massive LOAD of homework. All that got me through was thinking of this fanfic and all the wonderful tortures I have in store for poor Fang. By the way, if you hadn't figured it out, I don't own Maximum Ride, because if I did it would have gone something like this, wouldn't it? Hehe. BEGIN!**

**6 A.M.**

Fang's heart pounded in his chest and screamed for release from this white, white room. He reached out blindly for something to hold on to so he wouldn't die, and his hands met the wall.

Fang was on his feet with no knowledge of having stood up, and his mind was a hurricane. He pressed both hands flat against the white wall and leaned his head against it, black on white white white.

He was scared, drowning, choking, dying. Screams of panic Bubbled up in his throat and died away, but all of it ended in one or two seconds. When his mind cleared and he could breathe again, he slid to the white floor and breathed in the antiseptic and thought of Max.

Strange how well he remembered the smell of her hair. God, he loved her. God, he loved Maximum Ride.

But he knew that if he dwelled on the sweet, sweet smell of her hair the world might break, because she held it together and he couldn't reach her through all the whiteness.

So he waited. There was nothing to be done. It was a sick feeling, sitting there breathing in antiseptic air and wondering. Fang felt nausea building in his stomach and pressed his back against the white wall, forcing it down. In, out.

Out of nowhere the white opened up. And in stepped a familiar face.

**6 A.M.**

Angel opened the eye that wasn't swollen shut and was greeted by a flawless sky. She looked at it in fascination, mind dull. Then the pain hit her and in a rush it all came back.

She moved her head gingerly, lifting her golden curls and peering around at the flock. They looked hurt. Iggy had a long cut above his lip.

The sky was light in the middle and deep around the edges.

Angel shifted experimentally, moving one limb at a time. Everything hurt, but nothing was broken. Her skin was spotted with dark bruises, her hands crusted with blood. She scraped them against the grass, trying to rub it off, but the dirt stung the cuts. She shook her head, wiping her hair away from her face with a forearm.

Angel stood shakily, limping to Iggy, who lay two yards away, an arm flopped over Gazzy in protection. She knelt beside him, touching his shoulder gently at first. When he didn't respond, she gave him a little shake. He let out a little moan and she sat back on her heels, watching him.

He reached upward with a dirty hand which Angel caught in her own. "Ang...Angel?" His voice was hoarse and his lip bled when he spoke.

"Iggy, are you alright?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah, I'm-" He leaned over and spat out a glob of blood on the cold leaves. "Fine." He raised himself up on one arm and looked around.

The loss of warmth caused Gazzy to stir. He stared blearily up at them, confusion is his glassy eyes. Then all at once Max and Nudge were there, Nudge swaying slightly on her feet and Max kneeling beside Gazzy. A long cut ran from her hairline to her right ear. Blood oozed lazily from it, drying on her face and matting the edge of her hair.

"Gazzy, are you okay?" No reply. "Because you have to be okay." Gazzy mumbled something incoherent and his eyes started to slide shut again.

Max panicked. "Oh, no, Gasman, you're gonna keep your eyes open." She hid the desperation in her voice with a skill born of practice, but Angel was not fooled. Max reached down and gently brushed a strand of hair away from Gazzy's forehead, a note of motherly tenderness there that Angel didn't need to read her mind to understand.

The sky was getting brighter around the edges and it had no right.

"Gazzy?" It was Iggy this time, his bloody, dirty hand finding Gazzy's smaller, bloody, dirty hand and squeezing.

"Hurts."

The word was a faint rasp and a strangled sound escaped Nudge's throat at the sound of it; her body jerked as if to turn away but she didn't. Angel was unaware that Iggy's hand was still clutched between hers.

Iggy's finger was broken and her grip hurt like hell but he didn't point it out.

Max's voice, a little broken. "What hurts?"

"Everything."

Suddenly Gazzy's face cleared a little. He looked at each of them in turn. "Where- where's Fang?" His whisper silenced the trees and the blood and the cold ground.

Max turned around, fully expecting to see Fang standing there and realizing all at once that he wasn't. Suddenly the world was screaming again.

With a look of faint surprise, Gazzy passed out.

**7:37 A.M.**

"Do you have any questions, Fang?"

"No."

"Anything on your mind?"

"No."

"Anything? Others will not be so kind."

"Why did you choose me?"

"I'm afraid I fail to understand."

"If it's Max you want to know about, if it's the Flock, why not go directly to her?"

Jeb Batchelder smiled, his cold eyes calculating, his air distant and professional. He was ice.

So was Fang. Hard like ice, cold like ice.

"You've given us cause to believe that you are the best candidate to provide us with the information we desire."

Ice.

Silence.

"If that is all, I would like to introduce you to Dr. Anthony Barker. You will follow him."

You will follow him.

Dr. Anthony Barker had watery blue eyes and graying blonde hair. He gestured toward Fang with a hand that was too wrinkled for its age.

You will follow him.

Dr. Anthony Barker led him down a long hallway to a long white room. It was inconspicuous; it was the same room every kid had visited countless times, without the smiling giraffes on the wall.

He gestured again, this time to the lone table that stood against a white wall. His back turned to Fang, he pulled something out of a locked drawer and did something with it. Fang was still ice.

The doctor turned around, saw Fang, and walked to the table himself.

"You will follow."

Fang followed. He stood face to face with Dr. Anthony Barker, and there was a tense moment. Dr. Barker took his arm, and his touch was neither threatening nor gentle. Ice.

In his other hand was a syringe, and Fang held his face unreadable, unflinching.

"I will administer a drug which will allow you to better fulfill our purposes."

Fang stood still, thinking of Max's hair.

Fragile, like ice.

**Thanks for reading! Review and do well in school. Or you'll end up living on the street. With no house and no cream cheese frosting. I went there.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey! Sorry for the wait, peoples. I had a bunch of stuff going on and we writers are lazy by nature. Anyway, I'm back now. This chappie was fun to write, and the next chappie will be even more fun to write because that's when Fang's real torture starts. Hehehe. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own it, blah, blah, blah.**

**Claimer: I oWn ThIs FaNfIc!**

**BEGIN**

**9:00 A.M.**

It was the straps; the straps were killing him.

They brought back memories that Fang had never known existed. The straps and the memories. He was dying. He was dying.

He lay on the steel table, heavy canvas straps across his chest and legs. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Couldn't even scream because the injection kept his mouth from responding to his brain. He could only lay there dripping cold sweat; each drop was the life draining out of him.

_Think of Max. Think of Max. _He couldn't smell her hair anymore, but he could think of her; he could say her name in his mind over and over until it was almost a sound. But it would never be a sound because that was what the injection did. He was ice but he was cracking and falling; he was an avalanche. But God, he loved her.

God, he was dying.

He didn't know what it was, but apart from making him silent the drug made the world more focused, made his nerves more alert and made him feel distinctly alive even though he was dying, dying.

It was not an alive he wanted to be.

The door opened without warning. Dr. Anthony Barker stepped in, followed by an assistant who had dull eyes and thin hair. The assistant didn't look like a doctor. He looked like a regular guy. A regular, dumb-looking guy.

Fang turned his eyes to the ceiling. The doctor was at his side. He was reaching into the locked drawer again, or maybe it was a different drawer. Fang couldn't tell because his eyes were on the ceiling, which was white.

Through the corner of his eye, Fang saw the balding man watching him. He couldn't determine what was written on his face and didn't turn his head to do so.

The doctor turned around and spoke. There was nothing in the watery blue eyes. "I will administer a second drug. It will be painful. It is necessary that you remain still." The statement was unnecessary. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

He didn't flinch as the needle slid into his arm. It hurt but the pain was irrelevant. Fang could almost smell her hair, and the pain reminded him that he was still alive.

The real pain took a few minutes to arrive. Fang lay there sweating as it began to register. His stomach clenched a little, and he almost gasped. It clenched harder. An icy fist was twisting it cruelly. And the ice was dripping from his skin, salty tears, his whole body crying from the pain of it.

But his eyes were dry. He was about to vomit but knew that he wouldn't; his stomach had been ripped to shreds by the icy fist.

Slowly, the pain spread. Up his body and out to his fingertips. Every inch he was dying, dying, silent silent silent. Max, Max, think of Max, think of—God—Max.

He would be just fine if he could scream. The doctor and the assistant looked at him with uncaring eyes, and he looked at them, just looked at them. Let their eyes drift to his and let them see the pain there, because he couldn't scream but they needed to understand.

The pain was unimaginable. It burned, it took hold of his bones and twisted, it tore at his insides violently, gracelessly. What they hoped to find out from this he didn't know, but the pain would kill him.

He kept breathing, dying, breathing. The pain was making his body go into panic and he would not panic. Defiantly, he closed his eyes. He kept breathing. His skin was slick with sweat and the pain ravaged his body but he laid there, eyes closed, heart thumping, breathing.

Dr. Barker looked on.

The look on the subject's face had gone from pain to desperation to nothing. The subject could have been sleeping.

Leaning over the subject, the doctor watched as the subject's chest rose and fell. It was breathing; that was all. Ragged breaths that didn't match the subject's empty face.

It had been nicer this time; the injection had taken care of the screams. The only indication of the subject's pain was in the ragged breaths.

With a sigh, the doctor flicked his hand in his assistant's direction. The man stood up and walked to the table, where a new syringe was waiting. He deftly filled it with a clear liquid and held it up to eye level, checking the measurement. He walked over to the subject but Dr. Barker held up a hand.

"Only one person may touch the subject, I'm afraid."

He stepped forward and took the syringe. The assistant stepped back, allowing him room. The doctor picked up the subject's limp arm. It was damp with perspiration. The doctor couldn't help marveling at the subject's calmness. There had been other subjects, of course; they had lasted very briefly under the drug's effects. But the dark-haired one was strong.

He slid the needle in with precision. The subject was still. Dr. Barker turned over the subject's wrist and felt the pulse. It was steady; it sounded pained. Ridiculous.  
He placed the subject's hand back on the table. Was it shaking?

**9:00, Elsewhere**

The Flock was panicking and there was nothing Max could do. Gazzy was hurt, Fang was missing, and she was more helpless than she'd been in a long time. As long as Gazzy couldn't fly, they couldn't begin to look for Fang. Max's mind was doing horrible things; pictures of Fang with various whitecoats, undergoing various tortures. The thought of him back at the School was a physical pain. It hurt like hell.

The Flock was tired. Max was tired. She felt like crying but didn't cry because that would make her more helpless than she already was.

At some point, they had found a roomy cave in which to take refuge. It was cold, but they were numb. At the moment, the Flock was huddled on the floor, wrapped tightly in blankets. Angel's warm body pressed against her own, and she stayed still so that Angel wouldn't move, because if she did Max might die. One by one the Flock fought their way into a heavy sleep, blessedly dreamless because their dreams would have been nightmares.

Only Max lay awake. The silence was a rush in her ears, and she needed to scream to drown it out. She almost did. Then she looked up at the black sky and thought inexplicably of the way Fang breathed when he was sleeping. For the first time in her life, she wished she were a poet.

**10:00**

Fang slept soundly, dreaming of nothing, the world behind his eyelids gloriously black. The pain was still there, but it was a distant thing, fuzzy in his sleeping mind. His body was limp and useless, and he was going to sleep sleep sleep until he died or he was back with the Flock again.

Across the room, three men argued in hushed tones, not wanting the subject to hear although there really was little danger of the subject waking up.

Jeb Batchelder stood the tallest of the three and the coldest. Dr. Anthony Barker looked a little paler than normal and his assistant was angry.

"I know the subject personally. Physical torture will do you no good. We have to target its mind."

"Then do so. But don't involve my mind." A note of desperation.

"Doctor, the only person whose mind is involved will be the subject. Everything we need from you is already in the syringe."

"Use the subject's own memories."

"Of course, but that's just a warm up. I know that the subject can tolerate those; it's done it for years without any drug. This will be much harder."

Silence.

"You don't really have a choice."

The silence was thin, and Dr. Anthony Barker sighed.

"You'll administer the silencing drug." A question?

"Yes. He'll understand, of course, its purpose."

"Eventually."

Jeb Batchelder smiled a little coldly. He was a kid on a playground, dangling a toy just out of another kid's reach.

"How long?"

"The drug was administered an hour ago. It will be any moment now."

**CLIFFIE! So. I hope you liked it. I'll try to update faster next time. (Promise!) Anyway, I've been reading a bunch of fics like this so I can try to make mine different and I've got a pretty good idea of where I'm going with it. If anybody gets an idea on how I can make it more original, TELL MEH! Happy Thimphu Tshechu, whatever the heck that is. It's celebrated today in Bhutan. ;) Winky face.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi! I'm soooo sorry, beautiful people! I can't believe it's taken me this long. I am a chronic procrastinator and have abused your faithful readership. So I've decided to post this chapter, even though I haven't gotten everything in yet that I planned. The next chapter will pretty much be part 2 of this chapter. Anyway, thank you for sticking around. You will not wait this long next time, I swear. (I just saw Les Miserables for the first time and have a random urge to sing, "This I swear by the STAAAAAAARS!" But that would be corny.) Rock on.**

**10:13 AM**

When Fang woke up he was in a cage. His cheek rested against the metal bars. They were cold against his skin. His body ached and stung and shivered and everything hurt. His hair was matted against his sweaty forehead and he reached up to wipe it away, realizing vaguely that he was shaking. The metal bars dug into his legs and they ached.

Reality was slow torture. Little by little he remembered dimly what had happened. He vaguely wanted to feel something at the memory, but he felt nothing. He was breathing hard.

He looked around, the bars digging into the back of his head. Fang knew where he was. Somewhere, he knew this place, the smell and color and silence of it. And the bars. He remembered those.

He looked up at the cage stacked above his. Empty. Funny. Someone should be there.

His vision was beginning to blur. Am I dying? It was possible. He felt nothing, nothing.

Suddenly he was dizzy and reality was jerky and he was looking out at the white walls from under several feet of water. Water? Tears?

Fang hadn't cried since he was seven.

Seven. He was in the School. How could he forget? He was seven and on a table in a white room, feeling nauseous. His skin was clammy and the world was hot. Above him stood a whitecoat with sandy hair and tired eyes, fiddling with the machine that stood on the counter. Fang didn't understand what he was doing. When the whitecoat had put the tube down Fang's throat, Fang had been half-conscious. Now he lay there with the whitecoat's machine probing around in his stomach, feeling nauseous.

White walls wavered for a moment in his vision. It was a dream; he'd dozed off and he was in the cage.

The cage was a cliff; he was teetering on the edge.

Seven. Same white room, same table. He'd panicked and they'd strapped him down, flat on his stomach with his arms down by his sides and his wings bent harshly against the straps. He rested his dark head on the steel and cried. They were so careless with his wings.

Were the tears really there? Somewhere Fang felt like screaming.

The tears pooled around his face on the steel table and he decided to cry until he could drown in them. His wings hurt. He was scared that they wouldn't work now, not that he'd ever tried them.

Fang was sweating.

He was dreaming but it felt so real.

He wanted to scream.

The pain burst out of him in a piercing cry.

He was going to burst.

Drowning, he needed air.

His was breathing hard.

His lungs were going to burst.

_I'm dying._

And he was right, of course.

Because a second later the cage drifted away again, giving way to blackness. Better than whiteness.

He didn't know what was happening. His cage sat on a gray counter in an unfamiliar white room. There were two other cages, one on his right and one on the counter across the room. He couldn't see inside it.

Fang sat hunched in the farthest corner of his own cage, worried. He didn't know what was happening. He glanced behind him, unsure.

The form in the cage was a girl- partly a girl. She was a failed experiment, clearly. Her body was lopsided. When Fang looked at her, she stared back with huge, unblinking eyes. Her long, stringy hair fell over her face. Fang looked away.

The door opened.

Three men in white coats came in, and one woman. The woman was blond and her expression was cool. Firm.

Fang decided he didn't like her. He turned away, fixing his eyes on his own hands.

The whitecoats were talking.

"Which ones do we have here?"

"SF11 and SF13."

"What about that one?"

"Avian-human. He's the last one we'll get to."

"We'll start with the failed one, then?"

Dr. Barker turned to face the woman, serious. "No experiment is a failure, Amanda. You should know that. It's all a learning process."

The woman named Amanda nodded. "Of course."

The doctor turned away again and came toward Fang and the girl as the other three whitecoats lined up against the opposite counter. They each held a clipboard. The woman twirled a pen in her fingers.

When he got to their cages, the doctor looked down at them briefly with his blue eyes. He then pulled out a key from inside his white coat and reached to unlock the girl's cage. She whimpered, eyes widening, which was impossible. She scooted to the back of her cage like Fang.

Fang prayed to the air that the man wouldn't look at him.

And he didn't. Dr. Barker's focus was on the girl. He opened the door to her cage and smiled at her, reaching both arms inside. She curled away from his touch. At the touch of his hand to her arm, the girl jumped violently, causing the cage to rattle. It was loud. Fang cringed a little.

The blond woman let out a high laugh. Fang looked at her.

He didn't see why she was laughing. She didn't look happy.

"What did you do this time, Anthony? Mess with the poor thing's nervous system?"

Dr. Barker's face was grim. He didn't know why she was laughing either, Fang thought.

"A little too much. I'm afraid we've made this one...jumpy."

He grabbed the girl by both arms and dragged her out of her cage. A high wail escaped her lips and Fang felt himself go pale.

He knew what they were going to do to her.

They had tried to do it to him once but they had given up because he was too stubborn.

He was also desperately scared of needles.

God, god, god, don't let this happen. Don't make me watch this happen. Don't make me watch. Don't make me watch.

The girl was strapped to the table with surprising care. She was still screaming, but the whitecoats were deaf.

The injection went in her wrist, then the monitor snapped around it.

Don't make me watch.

Dr. Barker was now moving around the room, flipping switches and checking monitors.

His eyes scanned over his clipboard. He then looked up at the girl and spoke in a monotone. "Experiment SF13, you will now undergo a test. In a moment you will feel a prick in your wrist, followed by slowly increasing pain. You will endure this for as long as you can, and when you feel that you can't take it any longer you need to let us know immediately. We will proceed from there. Any questions?"

The girl's wide eyes held no sign of understanding. They were slightly golden and almost innocent. There was a moment of silence.

Dr. Barker spoke again. "Alright. Amanda, get ready."

"Yes, sir."

The young blond woman walked over to the side of the table and pulled something toward her that looked like an x-ray machine. She then stood quietly by the girl's side.

The two other whitecoats in the room looked on in interest, pens poised above their clipboards.

There was the quiet whir of machinery.

Dr. Barker observed a set of monitors closely, occasionaly reaching out to adjust something.

SF13 let out a forceful breath. The blond woman leaned over her, smiling. "Is something wrong?"

SF13 shook her head rapidly, while trying to form a word. "N...n-n-needle."

She's like me, Fang thought. Oh, God, Oh God.

The woman's smile became sympathetic. "Yes, what you felt was a small injection. Don't worry; the drug it just administered was purely for our benefit. You won't feel any change, sweetheart."

The girl's wide eyes held panic. They wandered to the machine hanging over her.

"Don't worry about that, sweetheart. Just relax. You can talk to me if you want. I want this to be as comfortable for you as possible."

Silence.

Dr. Barker fiddled with a machine.

The girl spoke without warning.

"Wh..wha..Wh-what happens i-if I-I tell you...tell you t-to stop?"

The woman smiled again. "It's alright, sweetheart. Take deep breaths."

There was a beep from one of the machines and the girl's eyes became even larger.

"Wh-What..."

But she couldn't get the sentence out again.

"It's nothing to worry about, sweetheart. Try to relax."

Fang looked on from behind the cold metal bars.

With every minute, SF13 slowly appeared to be in more pain.

She gradually began to shake.

A month later, she began to toss her head back and forth on the metal table, stringy hair swishing.  
Fang chose to stare at it rather than look at her face. She couldn't seem to make a sound.

SF13 looked over at Fang and her wide eyes were pools of pain and fear and confusion. She saw the tears on his face that Fang was oblivious to and squinted at him, puzzled.  
She was crying, too, but only Fang noticed.

The blond woman gently but firmly turned the girl's face toward her own. "Don't mind him. Just focus on me. I'm here for you. That's it, sweetheart."

The girl thrashed in pain. The straps bound her to the table and she panicked, every muscle in her skinny body fighting to escape. The woman spoke softly to her. Her tone was soothing, and the girl's eyes latched on to her gently smiling face.

She shuddered violently in her straps and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. The woman seemed to understand.

"Doctor."

Dr. Barker nodded. He gestured toward the cage on the far side of the room and the two whitecoats went over to it, grabbing either side and hauling it over to where Dr. Barker was standing.

The woman was still smiling. Fang didn't think she could actually be happy.

He remembered one time a whitecoat had tried to open his cage but he couldn't do it because his hands were shaking so violently.

The woman's hands were quite steady.

The cage was placed on the floor, and one of the whitecoats bent down to unlock it.

Fang looked away, not wanting to see what was inside.

**Yep. It ends abruptly, but you'll find out what happens soon. ;) Don't forget that sexy little button down there. Unless you're feeling betrayed by my lateness, which would be understandable. Au revoir, salut, à la prochaine, à bientôt!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi! I've just finished a freaking RIDICULOUS homework assignment from my STUPID FREAKING math teacher, so I now must post this chapter so I can read all your kind reviews and stop wanting to punch someone. Anyway, this is my fastest update ever. I feel so accomplished. ;) Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews. You made my week, beautiful people. BEGIN!**

**Seven**

The cage swung open with a slight creak and Fang knew it hadn't been opened in a while. He drummed on the floor of his own cage and didn't look.

The whimpers he heard were pathetic. They wrenched his head around and forced him to stare at the pathetic experiment before him. One whitecoat caught the creature by what must have been its arms and held it against a space of white wall. The other grabbed the cage and slid it across the floor. Fang felt the screeching sound of the metal on the floor tear at his brain, and he scraped his fingernails against a metal bar.

God. Not. This.

The cage was moved to support the weight of the experiment and Dr. Barker opened a drawer, removing something heavy. It was a blanket, but it smelled like antiseptic and weighed too much to be a blanket. He laid it over the experiment, reducing it to a vaguely human lump. The whitecoat holding it still shifted both tiny wrists to one hand and pressed a button. A square of the white wall opened up, revealing a gray machine. The whitecoat pulled the skinny creature's arms up and secured both wrists in the machine. The experiment's painfully thin form hung limply.

Fang wondered why they put the blanket there.

The blonde woman stood gently stroking the girl's face as everything went on around them. The girl was on the edge of panic.

Fang's eyes followed Dr. Barker as he unwound a long, clear tube, attaching one end to the monitor holding the girl's wrist. Fang didn't need to see where the other end went. The doctor walked back to the counter and flipped more switches. The girl was writhing in pain.

The blonde woman spoke. "Talk to me, doctor."

Dr. Barker nodded, looking at a clipboard. "You were right about SF13. We overcorrected its nervous system on the second try; it's one of our biggest problems with this one. Its resistance to pain is almost zero." As he spoke he sanitized a tiny needle, holding it up to examine it for flaws. He gestured carelessly to the pitiful lump under the heavy green blanket. "That one didn't turn out well, true, but we did achieve one thing we've been working toward. The blood itself creates an almost absolute resistance to pain. Each of its red blood cells is fused with a unique chemical combination that numbs the receptors and stops them from sending the message to the brain that would be perceived as pain." He bent down slightly, carefully sliding the needle into the machine holding SF11 and locking it into place. "We'll extract SF13's blood and filter the cells through this." He tapped the large box-like machine with all the switches that sat on the counter. "We'll then do the same with SF11 and combine its red blood cells with SF13's white ones, and vice versa."

"Then SF11 will be retired?"

"No, we'll keep it for further experimentation."

A shrill laugh. "You can't be serious, Anthony. There's no hope for that one."

"Of course not. SF11 is merely a means of improving on more sophisticated models."

On the table, SF13 let out gagging noise, interrupting them. The woman named Amanda turned to the girl once more, her face sliding into a compassionate expression. She touched the experiment's shoulder, smiling gently. "It's alright, sweetheart. Try to relax." She looked over at Dr. Barker and he nodded. "You're going to feel another slight prick. Don't be alarmed."

The girl's breathing was noisy and Fang gripped the bars, wanting to see her face but knowing he would die if he had to look at the pain there.

The woman was still talking in a soothing tone. "Right now your blood is being replaced with a synthetic solution. Don't worry; it carries oxygen so well that you won't feel a thing."

You won't feel a thing. You won't feel a thing. Don't feel. Don't feel. Just breathe. Don't feel anything.

Far away, Fang's body lay curled up in a cage that was too small for him. His chest rose and fell, but he felt nothing, nothing.

A clear blue liquid flowed through the tube as blood flowed through another tube into the machine on the counter. Fang thought of something.

The blonde woman spoke. "What change will SF11 undergo when its blood is replaced?"

Dr. Barker looked at his pencil as he spoke. "Nothing, at first. But the D48 is still in the blood it will be receiving, so the pain will build gradually as SF13's did."

"Necessary."

"Yes."

The transformation was slow. Fang looked on in silent nothingness as the girl's face slowly relaxed into something almost peaceful. He turned and watched the body shaking under the blanket. Fang knew then what the blanket was for. The experiment's pathetic form did not have to the strength to move under its weight. Fang was sure it would be thrashing in pain if it could. As it was, he could barely see it shaking.

Dr. Barker was having the same thoughts. Fang watched him twist the pencil violently in his hands. His face looked tired.

The whitecoats were scribbling things on their clipboards and only the blonde woman and Fang saw.

"Necessary, Anthony."

Cold.

The girl on the table looked asleep. She wasn't in pain anymore. Her chest moved softly but if Fang shifted a little he couldn't see it move and she was dead.

The doctor spoke. "You will now receive a second injection of D48 to test the results of the transfusion."

The girl didn't hear him. She didn't feel a thing.

But SF11 did. Right now, trying to tear his eyes away from the shaking slightly human thing, Fang thought it was a little more human than it looked. He wished they would lift the blanket now so it could breathe. He wished they would leave it there forever so he wouldn't have to look. He didn't really need to. They all looked the same when they came out of one of the labs. Shaking. Rocking. Grinning. Not crying. Never crying.

In a moment the whitecoats had all gathered their things. Her job done, the blonde woman named Amanda stood up and turned away from the girl to leave the room. SF11 was left on top of the cage hidden from view.

Dr. Barker hovered against the counter.

The woman switched the light off behind her, expecting the doctor to follow.

When she was gone, Dr. Barker strode over to the switch and turned the lights back on. He crouched beside the cage on the floor and carefully, carefully peeled the blanket back. The sadly human thing was curled into a ball. At the sudden loss of warmth it lifted its head and looked at Dr. Barker with wide eyes.

Dr. Barker took its limp hand. Putting an arm under the fragile body for support, the doctor set SF11 gently on the floor, where it stood shakily, human human human.

Dr. Barker didn't move, didn't speak, simply held the pathetic hand in his larger one. If he squeezed he would crush it.

Slowly SF11 seemed to come to reality and his shaking became more violent. His big eyes grew hollow and he clung to Dr. Anthony's hand with both of his, rocking back and forth. No tears. He, him, not it. SF11.

Dr. Barker made no move, simply let the sad creature cling to his hand until it was breathing again. Then he led SF11 to the counter where Fang's cage sat.

"You're gonna stay here tonight. You won't be alone; you'll have him." The doctor jerked his head in Fang's direction but didn't really notice him. He slid the lock open and pushed SF11 into the small space, gently, gently. SF11 scooted to the far back corner, but he wasn't afraid of Fang. Experiments couldn't be afraid of each other. They had to be okay with each other because they would die if they weren't.

Dr. Barker switched the lights off and left the room.

**Booyah! I just posted two chapters that fast. I must be amazing. So you should review. By the way, I wrote this way too late at night so if I did anything stupid that's why. I'll bring the rest of the flock back into the story in the next chapter, in case you were wondering. Now go do well in school! ;D**


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